1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to backing-up and restoring an application in a computing system, and more particularly, to using application restore points to restore an application (or operating system component) to a state that existed prior to installing (or upgrading) the application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Installing new applications, as well as updating an existing application or operating system, is a commonly occurring process. For example, application (and operating system) vendors frequently release patches that update an application, correct a “bug” or security problem. Sometimes however, installing new applications or upgrading existing ones disrupts a computer system. That is, the upgrades sometimes “break” the application (or other applications running on the system). For example, if an upgrade process does not complete successfully, the application may not be able to function properly and/or data could be lost. Similarly, an upgraded application sometimes affects other system applications in unanticipated ways, such as preventing them from functioning properly. Thus, in some cases, the application or upgrade may have to be removed to allow the computing system to resume functioning properly.
One approach to removing an application upgrade is to create a complete image of a computing system prior to installing (or upgrading) an application, and then restore that image if necessary. However, this approach often requires significant storage resources. Furthermore, restoring an application to a state before the upgrade requires a user of the computing system to remember to create the system image before initiating an upgrade process. Moreover, this approach frequently results in substantial downtime during the back-up process, during the installation process, or, if the image is used to restore the system, during the restoration process.